Summary: Foreign policy in the news and what can be learned from the current strategies

IF WE are going to believe Fox, CNN, Sky and other corporate news channels, the world is a horribly dangerous place and it's all because of some people who envy the West for infinite liberty and lots of inexpensive junk food. The reality is a lot more complicated than this; in order to understand the full story we must go back and revisit a history of foreign policy that's designed to exploit and to annul the liberty of people abroad. We needn't go so far back in time. Our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, made a killing by helping to start a war [1], which the UK continues to defend on behalf of the US [2]. This war is said to have needlessly killed half a million people and displaced many more.

Domestically, the panic isn't any better. Even in Western nations the spooks are trying to create new enemies, giving fake bombs to people and then heralding the threat of terrorism at home. Scahill recently said that "the FBI has a PhD in breaking up its own terror plots." [3] Scahill has been a notable activist/author against drone strikes, which create hatred [4] and help radicalise people (which makes terrorism a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts). Obama himself takes great pleasure in assassinating people without trial [5,6], which would only contribute to more such hatred and put to end any moral high ground [7]. In Egypt, terror charges were recently filed against Obama [8] and given what he did in Syria (arming so-called 'rebels' through Benghazi [9] to induce so-called 'change' [10,11]) he oughtn't be shocked by blowback [12]. It is believed that the strategy of assassination has been practised far too much recently (not just by the US [13]) and all it can ever do is create more of the phenomenon you purport to be destroying. Forceful intervention is hardly ever the solution. We need understanding and cooperation instead, building bridges after all the violence. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Tony Blair: never in the field of human history has one man earned so much from the deaths of so many

   Just as we learned that the US and UK governments were conspiring to stop us learning the truth of the Bush-Blair Iraq conspiracy, Tony Blair picked up €£150,000 for an hour-long speech in Dubai





2. Exclusive: US blocks publication of Chilcot’s report on how Britain went to war with Iraq

   Department of State’s objection to release of key evidence may prevent inquiry’s conclusions from ever being published, except in heavily redacted form





3. Jeremy Scahill with Tom Engelhardt, Conversation, 30 October 2013

4. U.S. Drone Program Needs to Be Accompanied by Hard Facts on Civilian Deaths

   Pakistan’s waffling on the number of civilians killed in U.S. drone strikes underscores the need for more transparency.





5. Obama brag, in new book: I’m ‘really good at killing people’ with drones





6. 'I'm really good at killing people' - book claims Obama told aides

   It seems that President Obama is very much aware of the effects of his drone campaign, as he reportedly told aides he’s “really good at killing people.”
   
   The quote comes from a new book called “Double Down,” by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, which chronicles the inside story of the 2012 election. The Washington Post was the first outlet to expose the quote in its review of the book.





7. Does America have a “Licence to Kill”? US Drone War on Yemen Violates International Law

   Since 2009, the United States have regularly bombed Yemen. These aerial attacks have occurred in almost all of the country’s provinces. More recently, drone strikes have multiplied, and the infrastructure required for these types of attacks have been expanded, not only in Yemen, but also in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti. Since the beginning of strikes in November 2002 to the writing of this report in July 2013, the United States have carried out between 134 and 234 military operations in Yemen. This includes strikes carried out by aircraft and drones as well as missiles launched from warships located in the Gulf of Aden. According to various sources, the number of people killed range from 1000 to 2000. However, to this day, neither the Yemeni or American authorities have put forward official statistics on the number of casualties.





8. Criminal terror charges filed against Obama

   Several prominent media sources in Egypt are now reporting that Egyptian lawyers have filed criminal terrorism charges in the International Criminal Court against President Obama in addition to the criminal terrorism charges previously filed in Egyptian courts against the president’s half-brother Malik Obama.





9. Benghazi Survivors Given NDAs at CIA Memorial Service for Woods, Doherty

   Two former CIA officials who fought in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, were asked to sign additional nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) more than six months after those attacks. The two officials, who will testify Thursday before a subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, were presented the nondisclosure agreements during a memorial service in May at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, honoring Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, two of the CIA-affiliated personnel who died during those attacks.





10. Coup intelligence says relations with CIA now restored

    The Director of Egypt's General Intelligence Service, Mohamed Farid Tuhami, disclosed that the cooperation between Egypt's two intelligence services and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has now been restored to the same level as during the rule of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, back when General Omar Suleiman managed the Egyptian intelligence services. Tuhami, known as General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's mentor, is now in charge of military intelligence. Ousted President Mohammed Morsi had dismissed him from his former position over corruption charges; however, the coup leaders reinstated him.





11. Syria has Changed

    The media coverage of the war in Syria examines only military, diplomatic and humanitarian action. It ignores profound transformation. However, one does not survive a sea of ​​violence without changing profoundly. From Damascus, where he has lived for two years, Thierry Meyssan describes this evolution.





12. Barack Obama's Twitter, Facebook, Campaign website and Email Accounts hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

    'Syrian Electronic Army is an organized hacking group loyal to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and known for their high profile cyber attacks. This year they were able to disrupt the New York Times web page multiple times, Twitter, CNN, the Huffington Post and Global Post and many more targets.
    
    The SEA website launched in May 2011 stating the group's mission: to attack the enemies of the Syrian government, mainly those who fabricated stories about the Syrian civil war.
    
    





13. Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned with polonium, tests show

    Swiss scientists find levels of polonium 18 times higher than normal in first forensic tests on former Palestinian leader's body